


An Unusual Proposition

by RachelClark



Series: A Different Kind of Monster [1]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Ableism, Alien Gender/Sexuality, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Canon-Typical Violence, Friendship, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Issues, Genetic Engineering, M/M, Non-Consensual Medical Proceedures, Pre-Slash, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-11-03 11:21:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10966182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RachelClark/pseuds/RachelClark
Summary: Set in the year 2359, ten years before the Cardassian occupation of Bajor ends in canon. A young human arrives on Terok Nor and begins frequenting the gambling tables at the newly opened Quark's Casino, Bar and Grill. Garak takes an interest.





	1. Chapter 1

“Your hustler’s back again, I see,” Garak remarks as he slides into a seat at the bar that offers him a clear view of the gambling tables.

“And so are you,” says Quark. “I’m so pleased to see my humble establishment beginning to attract such a broad clientele. What can I get you, Garak?”

“Kanar; not the 2327, something a little less potent.”

He’s not here to drink after all. As Quark seems to have realised, he’s come to continue his observation of the ‘hustler’ in question, a pretty slip of a human boy who scarcely looks old enough to be allowed in Quark’s. Tonight he’s playing a game of Kotra under the attentive supervision of Legate Re’gal. 

Re’gal is a fat, middle-aged drunkard whose reputation for preferring the company of boys over that of women has made him a figure of ridicule. In Cardassian society, statesmen and military officers of a certain age and status are expected to set aside such desires and dedicate themselves fully to the family and to the state. 

Re’gal is aware of his reputation and utterly unflustered by it. Garak suspects he’s smarter than he looks, and perhaps enjoys using his image as a harmless buffoon to manipulate his more arrogant rivals. Garak has read his file, which reveals that contrary to popular assumptions Re’gal never engages in any form of sex with his proteges; he prefers the role of a mentor to that of a lover, cultivating relationships with young men who he can spoil and indulge, and who will worship and admire him in return. 

While he seems to think he’s found what he’s looking for in his current companion, Garak thinks the human is playing him as cleverly as he’s playing the game on the board in front of him. 

He’s already captured both of Glinn Murot’s Legates and is closing in on his opponent’s Capital. Re’gal's presence provides him with a disguise, makes him seem like nothing more than a pretty ingénue who, under the tutelage of a patient and generous father figure, has mastered a new trick sufficiently well to be allowed to perform it in public.

What Re’gal, Murot, and the small crowd of Cardassian officers observing the game don’t seem to have realised is that there’s no conceivable way the human should have been able to learn the intricacies of Kotra from the few short lessons Re’gal so magnanimously imparted on him. 

The Cardassian memory arranges information so that the entirety of one’s knowledge can be accessed and experienced contemporaneously. Humans, by contrast, process events and information in a logical, sequential manner. Perhaps that’s why the Federation is known for building such excellent computer systems; they’re completely reliant on them to compensate for the inadequacies of the human brain.

Kotra is a game developed to amuse and challenge the Cardassian mind. It makes the definitive human strategy game called ‘Chess’ seem like child’s play by comparison. It shouldn’t be neurologically possible for a human to process information in a way that would allow him to hold his own in a game against a Cardassian opponent. Yet here Garak sits, watching a human boy barely past his age of emergence out-manoeuvring a trained Cardassian military officer.

“I’m surprised you let him back in here after the Tongo fiasco last week,” he says to Quark as the Ferengi bartender pours him a glass of fragrant pink Kanar and sets it on the bar in front of him. “How much did you lose again? Ten bars of gold pressed latinum?”

“Five,” says the Ferengi, a little defensively. “We have an arrangement now; he bankrolls his own gambling, he never bets against the house, and the house takes a twenty percent cut of anything he wins.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it against Cardassian law for a gambling establishment to have a vested interest in the outcome of a game?”

“Are you going to turn me in?”

“On the contrary; I'd like you to formalise the arrangement. Take the boy into your employ as a licensed proposition player so he can keep coming here and earning money legally.”

“Why?” asks Quark. At least that’s how Garak’s universal translator interprets the question. From the Ferengi’s dubious expression and from the fact that he’s, well, Quark, Garak understands that what he’s actually saying is ‘what’s in it for me?’.

“It’ll be profitable,” he replies. “Your young friend knows what he’s doing. He’ll keep winning often enough to bring in a decent revenue and losing often enough to prevent Security Chief Thrax from becoming suspicious, and I think you’ll find he’ll continue to attract a ‘niche’ clientele, one your dabo girls don't have much of an appeal to.”

“Perhaps, but why should I risk it? If he’s on my books and he gets caught cheating I could lose my licencse.”

“Quark you surprise me. I’d taken you for a Ferengi with a proper regard for the 62nd Rule of Acquisition.”

“The riskier road, the greater the profit. You know some of the greatest entrepreneurs in Ferengi history have lost everything because they followed that one blindly without giving sufficient consideration to rule 43.”

“'Feed your greed, but not enough to choke it.'”

“Exactly.”

“Then let me set your mind at ease. There’s nothing for Thrax to catch; the boy isn’t cheating.”

At least, Garak mentally amends, he’s not doing anything that would be considered cheating under Cardassian law. The Federation would likely take a different view.

As Quark is called upon by the group of Cardassian officers to take another round of drinks orders, Garak takes the opportunity to review the contents of the data pad he’s brought to the bar with him.

He calls up an image, and glances between it and the boy sitting across the room with Legate Re’gal’s arm draped loosely across the back of his chair, making his shoulders appear even skinnier than they really are. 

He really does have a remarkable talent for disguise.

The pad contains a collation of reports relating to a human fugitive named Jules Bashir, wanted throughout Federation space for murder, and for having undergone illegal genetic augmentation. 

The Federation considers augmentation to be an abomination, and the manhunt for Bashir has been one of the biggest galactic news stories of the year. In spite of this, Garak doesn’t think there is much risk of anyone else on Terok Nor realising that one of the most wanted criminals in the galaxy is living among them in the guise of a small-time gambler. Even to those who would argue all humans look the same, the difference between the awkward teenaged girl whose photographs appear in the reports and the charming, confident boy sitting across the room from Garak makes it very hard to believe they are one and the same.

He wonders if what he is seeing is a disguise at all. The girl who’s picture appears in the reports is worryingly thin even for a human female, and consistently dresses in loose clothing that hides any hint of curves. She wears her hair cropped in the type of brutally short style her species associates with masculinity. Most of the photographs show her looking ill at ease, her smile forced and her eyes shyly averted. The overall impression is of someone distinctly uncomfortable in their own skin.

For a species who pride themselves on their progressive and accepting outlook, humans can be surprisingly primitive in their understanding of gender. When Garak first discovered - from a comparative cultural anthropology textbook he’d been assigned to read as a student - that humans and many other species considered it perfectly normal to assign their children one of two binary genders at birth he had been horrified. 

He’d come to understand the practice a little better when, as a young intelligence operative, he’d spent an unexpectedly pleasant evening sharing a meal with a Starfleet counterpart who identified as non-binary. They’d enjoyed a fascinating discussion of the construction of gender in Human and Cardassian societies, both of them finding the subject considerably more interesting than the peace talks they’d been sent to observe by their respective intelligence services. 

“Humans are more androgynous than Cardassians,” Lt. Avery Emerson had explained. “We don’t see any one gender as better suited to specific roles than others; it's considered normal for a woman to become an admiral in Starfleet, or for a man to become a mother. Most human cultures have evolved so that people of any gender can choose to do anything, but we still assume children born with female genitalia will identify as female and children born with male genitalia will identify as male. It probably seems to you as though we’ve got things backwards.”

Garak had found himself nodding. “On Cardassia, males and females have different roles in society, but we don’t assume that a child is male or female based on their reproductive organs. We raise our children to understand and respect all genders and allow them to decide for themselves which ones they identify with as they grow up. Like you, we have ‘male’ and ‘female’ extremes, but they're part of a much wider spectrum. When they reach adolescence, Cardassian children assert their own gender identities. Only then do we begin referring to them using gender specific pronouns.”

“Are there any Cardassians like me, who can’t or don’t want to choose one gender over others? Or who don’t identify with any gender at all?” Emerson had asked.

“My people value accuracy,” Garak had explained. “The Cardassian language has a number of different pronouns we use to indicate the extent to which we identify as ‘male’, ‘female’, 'agender' or 'omnigender', but they tend to get reduced to two binary categories when they’re translated into standard. Fluidity is less common in adults - as a species we really do have a preference for categorising and defining things - but is still considered perfectly acceptable, if somewhat adventurous. What I want to know – and please forgive me if this is too personal a question – is if your parents assigned you a gender at birth, how did you….?”

“How did I know I was genderfluid?”

“I was actually more curious as to how you were able to communicate it to your parents; if you were burdened with the expectation of conforming to a particular gender at birth, wasn’t it difficult to assert a gender identity different from the one they had assigned you once you understood who you were?”

Emerson had told Garak they considered themself fortunate in that their parents had been attentive and supportive when they began to assert their own gender identity at the age of four, but not all human children were so lucky. 'Gender Dysphoria' was the name they’d given to the painful and distressing experience of being misgendered by one’s family or society. They’d explained that although the phenomenon was less widespread than it had been in the past, it still affected countless humans in societies throughout the Federation.

Garak finds himself staring once again at the boy across the room. His hair has grown out since the most recent photographs were taken six months ago, curling softly over his forehead and around the nape of his neck. Garak suspects he’s intentionally dressed in a manner intended to be pleasing to Cardassian eyes – something he cannot imagine the girl in the photographs choosing to do. His dark shirt is close fitting, with a high collar that bares a tempting ‘v’ of warm brown skin below his throat. He’s not muscular by any stretch of the word, but his slender frame is just wiry enough that it’s impossible to tell if the slight definition of his chest is the effect of an undergarment worn to compress his breasts, or merely the outline of pectoral muscles.

As Garak watches, he makes his final move; the game is over and he has won again. The Cardassian officers and soldiers applaud their young pupil, and Re’gal slaps him the back.

“What do you want with him, anyway?” Quark is back, loading the dirty glasses back into the replicator. “Look, I’m not an idiot, I know he must be in some kind of trouble. He might be a hustler, but he’s still just a kid. What’s he doing in Cardassian space all on his own? How did he even get across the border when your people are at war with the Federation?” 

“All excellent questions,” says Garak. He thinks carefully before he answers. Jules Bashir is interesting and capable and has the potential to be a unique intelligence asset. The reports suggest he – seeing how comfortable Jules looks, Garak is almost certain ‘he’ is the right pronoun, although he plans to ask as soon as he has the opportunity to speak with Bashir in private – was unaware of his genetic status before Starfleet security had raided his home and taken his parents into custody. What would they have done with him if they’d caught him? 

Garak is fascinated by the idea of what the little human might be capable of given the chance. Right now, he’s catching a glimpse of it. The boy may have lost everything, but he’s gained the freedom to be himself for the first time in his life. A seedy Ferengi bar on an old Cardassian mining station is an odd place to feel safe, but ironically, it’s probably the safest place in the galaxy for Jules Bashir right now, and he seems to know it. Either that or he’s decided he’s spent enough of his life hiding and feeling scared already and has made the decision to live as he is and to hell with the consequences.

Quark's position as the proprietor of Terok Nor's major entertainment venue makes him a person of interest to the Obsidian Order. There's nothing especially noteworthy about the Ferengi himself, but his profile indicates that he will view Bashir's situation sympathetically, and that's something Garak can work with. Decision made, he hands the pad over to Quark and waits for the shocked reaction to come…

“He’s a female!?”

Garak sighs, “Quark, really. You're looking at a report that shows your newest customer is a genetically enhanced fugitive wanted for murder and that’s what you’re worried about?”

“I’m not a female,” says a soft, hesitant voice. Garak looks up to see Bashir standing beside him. “I’m not actually a murderer either, in case you were worried,” he adds with a self-deprecating little smile that Garak finds quite charming, “although I am, apparently, genetically enhanced, which means among other things that I can hear you talking about me from the other side of the room. It’s Mr Garak, isn’t it?”

“Just Garak,” Garak replies. “Plain, simple Garak.”

The boy nods. “I’m Julian,” he says.

“Julian,” Garak repeats. “Would you care to join me for a drink?”


	2. Chapter 2

“See the man at the bar?” Re’gal bends his head to whisper in Julian’s ear, his breath cool against the back of the human’s neck in contrast to Terok Nor’s desert-hot air. “He’s watching us.”

Julian doesn’t need to look up from the game to know which man Re’gal means. 

“His name is Garak,” Re’gal continues. His strong, thick-fingered hand slips from Julian’s shoulder and slides down his back, coming to rest just above his tailbone. “Officially he’s here on business with the Ministry of Commerce, but if Gul Dukat is to be believed he’s a member of the Obsidian Order.”

Julian keeps his eyes on the board. His opponent, Glinn Murot, has failed to identify which of Julian’s silver playing pieces is his capital and has overextended his lines attempting to attack on multiple fronts. Julian, by contrast, has already forced Murot to move his own capital once and although he is not yet ready to reveal that he has determined its new position, he’s confident all that remains of the game is his own advance to victory.

“The Obsidian Order?” he asks, looking up at Re’gal with round, innocent eyes.

“The Cardassian intelligence agency,” Re’gal explains, “a very dangerous organisation. It’s said that a Cardassian citizen can’t sit down to a meal without each dish being duly noted and recorded by the Order, down to its preparation and the exact measurement of each ingredient.”

The people who’d come for Julian back on Earth had been intelligence agents. He’d run from them but they’d caught him. The thickset man with white skin and yellow hair had thrown him to the ground so hard he’d felt sick and half-blind for hours afterwards, straddling his hips and pinning his wrists above his head. “Half-baked augment bitch,” he’d hissed in a voice that was pure hate, spittle flying from his lips. “I’d take a good look up at the sky if I were you. Where you’re going I’d be surprised if they ever let you see it again.”

He shudders involuntarily. Re’gal laughs and reaches out to stroke his cheek and tuck a stray lock of his hair behind his ear. “You have nothing to fear from him, my dear,” he says, “though I suspect the same cannot be said for the rest of us here. Rumour has it that the Order is beginning to waver in its support of the occupation. Our civilian government believes that since mineral extraction on Bajor has entered decline, continued governance of such an unruly world is no longer in Cardassia’s interests. Naturally, Central Command disagrees. The Order may very well hold the balance of power between the two. The fact that they’ve sent a known enemy of Gul Dukat’s here to Terok Nor in the guise of a government official tasked with to assessing the future economic viability of the Bajoran mining project is… a concern.”

You may have every reason to be afraid, Julian finds himself thinking, but that doesn’t mean I don’t too. This isn’t the first time he’s noticed Garak watching him. He was here on Julian’s first night on the station, dining alone at the bar while Julian stood at the dabo table, deftly calculating the speed and deceleration of ball and wheel. He’d fulfilled the bargain he’d made with the freighter captain who’d smuggled him into Cardassian space, tripling the fee the Cardassians had paid her for the mining equipment her ship had delivered. His commission from the venture had been enough to rent guest quarters on Terok Nor for a few weeks at least. 

While no one in their right mind would consider a Cardassian uridium refinery and military command post to be a ‘safe’ place, Terok Nor seems like one of the most promising refuges in the quadrant for a run-away like Julian. The state of war between Cardassia and the Federation means closed borders and no extradition treaty. The station’s status as the Bajoran sector’s main trading post means its residents are more tolerant of aliens in their midst than your average Cardassian. Aside from the Ferengi bar staff, Julian had noticed Bosliks, Orions, Gallemites and a couple of Nausicaans in Quark’s tonight, as well as the Lurian who seems to be part of the bar’s furniture. Amidst such diversity, Julian feels relatively unremarkable.

Then there are the station’s Bajorans, who seem to fall into two categories. First, there are those who serve the Cardassians willingly; bureaucrats, maintenance workers, shopkeepers and prostitutes. The Cardassian military personnel look at them with a mix of forbearance and contempt; most of them look at Julian the same way. It’s like they want you to know they consider themselves superior to you in every way but will tolerate you as long as they continue to find you useful, submissive and amusing.

The second, larger, group of Bajorans refer to these privileged few as 'collaborators' and look at them with loathing. The Cardassians keep these people as slaves, working them sixteen hours a day in the ore processing centre and keeping them imprisoned in a section of the station that’s practically a ghetto. 

When Julian first escaped Federation space he’d found himself on Farius Prime, a polluted and overcrowded planet with virtually no remaining natural resources and an economy propped up by crime. Hunted, friendless and without money he’d had to dissuade a stream of brokers eager to recruit him into smuggling or sex-work. Instead, he’d sold himself into a work bond that took him to a dilithium mine on a barren asteroid in the Soukara system. The work there had been difficult, dangerous and physically exhausting and the living conditions cold, crowded and dirty. His six-month indenture had left him with a penchant for the card games and confidence tricks learned from the assortment of convicts, refugees and other reprobates he’d huddled for warmth with at night. Together with the daily dose of testosterone he’d begun to take when he left Earth, his time there had given him a harder, more worldly look that helped him pass – both as cisgender and as a legal adult. His resolve had hardened there as well, and he left Soukara with a certainty that he was entitled to more than a life of slavery; if Federation law said otherwise, then fuck Federation law.

The conditions in the section of Terok Nor that houses the Bajoran workers remind him of Soukara. Here, though, it’s the heat rather than the cold that adds to the labourers’ misery, and there’s no end to the days of painful drudgery for them to look forward to. Julian doesn’t think he will be able to exist here in relative privilege alongside such misery and injustice for long.

He looks up at Garak, now deep in conversation with Quark, and tries to pick out what the two are saying.

_“….nothing for Thrax to catch. The boy isn’t cheating.”_

“Quark!” the snatch of conversation Julian is able to make out is abruptly drowned out by the voice of Gil Damar, one of his least favourite Cardassians. Drink puts him in a dark, bitter mood; if you so much as smile at him the wrong way when he’s tanked-up on Kanar he’ll respond with hateful words and fingers that pinch and bruise. “More Kanar for the table!”

Murot finally makes his next move; it’s a bold one and would have put Julian in a difficult position had the Glinn not mistaken one of his Gils for his capital and directed his attack at the wrong sector of the board. As it is, Julian is happy to sacrifice the piece, as the move gives him room to bring his second Legate within reach of Murot’s capital once again.

Murot sits back with a sigh of defeat, and Damar lets out a cruel laugh, “Murot, didn’t you serve on the _Lakar_ at Setlik three? Perhaps it was you who advised our fleet to attack the Federation in the wrong place?”

The role Julian has been playing here requires him to take offence at that, “Human and Federation are _not_ the same thing,” he says in a low, dangerous voice. He moves to rise, but Re’gal keeps him in place with a strong hand on his thigh.

“With your grasp of strategy I’m not convinced there isn’t a little Cardassian in you,” Murot ignores Damar and addresses Julian with cordial dignity.

Damar mutters to Glinn Letok that he’d hardly call Legate Re’gal ‘little’, but as his voice is pitched too low for human ears to make out, Julian is forced to ignore him. Instead, he returns Murot’s polite smile. “Cardassians design the most fascinating games,” he replies, “we must have a re-match some time.” He looks up at Damar and adds sweetly, “perhaps then you’ll place your bets differently and win back some of the Latinum I’ve just won from you, Gil?”

This wins a laugh from the assembled crowd. Re’gal claps Julian between his shoulder blades, while Damar looks at him with loathing.

As the crowd around them begins to disperse, Julian finds his gaze drawn back towards Garak, who is once again deep in conversation with Quark

_“…What’s he doing in Cardassian space all on his own? How did he even get across the border when your people are at war with the Federation?” ___

____

____

They’re talking about him. He wonders if he will need to run again, but the downside of Terok Nor is it’s something of a bottleneck, not an easy place to disappear from quickly. Especially not when a possible Obsidian Order agent is watching you.

That said, all Garak has done so far is watch. The Federation news service depicts Cardassians as a ruthless, violent people, but it was the Federation, not the Cardassians, who broke into Julian’s grandmother’s home and threatened his parents at gunpoint. It was the Federation who sent armed officers to chase him through the streets, officers who beat him, abused and frightened him before he managed to escape them. It was the Federation who’d called him a monster and a ‘threat to humanity’ in their news broadcasts, who’d hunted for him across the quadrant as though he were some kind of renegade.

Next to him, Re’gal laughs, and Julian realises that while he’s been thinking he’s also been looking at Garak rather intensely. “You’re like a gettle-cub nipping at a riding hound’s tail,” Re-gal says. “You see a creature bigger and more dangerous than you’ll ever be and your first instinct is to try and entice it as a play mate! Well, I have business on Bajor tomorrow and I’ll need to be up at 0500 hours, so I shall leave you to your next game.” 

He takes his leave, using his thumb and forefinger to tilt Julian’s head upwards to place a proprietary but gentle kiss on his lips.

As soon as he has left the bar, Julian gets up and approaches Garak and Quark, who have progressed to discussing his sex assignment of all things and have failed to notice his approach.

“I’m not a female,” he interrupts them, startling Quark. Garak looks up him mildly, as though he’s an expected guest rather than the subject of an overheard conversation that has wandered into rather salacious territory. “I’m not actually a murderer either, in case you were worried,” he adds, “although I am, apparently, genetically enhanced, which means among other things that I can hear you talking about me from the other side of the room. It’s Mr. Garak, isn’t it?”

“Just Garak,” Garak replies. “Plain, simple Garak.”

“I’m Julian.”

“Julian,” Garak repeats. “Would you care to join me for a drink?”

“Spring wine,” Julian says to Quark, carefully taking a seat at the bar next to the Cardassian, “and my winnings if you don’t mind?”

“You can have your money,” says Quark, “but I’m not sure I should be serving you alcohol since according to the news reports Garak here just shared with me you’re _fifteen_ years old. 

"Ah," says Julian. Quark had asked him for proof he was a legal adult the first time he came to the bar, and Julian had obediently produced the fake ID card he'd bought with some of his wages from Soukara. "If it helps I've had a birthday since those things were written. I'm sixteen now."

Quark shakes his head in obvious disaproval. "Is it normal for humans to be so tall at your age or is that...” he holds one hand up to the side of his head and makes a twisting gesture, as though he’s adjusting a piece of machinery “… an augmentation thing?” 

“I don’t know,” Julian admits, “I didn’t know about any of it until I came home one day to find my family being held by armed Starfleet officers, and I never had the chance to ask my parents afterwards... I didn’t even get to say goodbye to them before I left Earth”

It’s odd to talk about it all out loud after months of keeping himself hidden. It makes his throat feel strangely tight.

The Ferengi sighs and sets three tumblers on the bar in front of him, filling them with a dark green liquid. “Aldebaran whisky,” he says in answer to Julian’s questioning look. “Kid, whatever your story is, I can see that we’re going to need something a little stronger than spring wine to get it out of you, and with all the Latinum you've won recently you can afford to treat me and Garak here to the good stuff as well; in fact, it'd be rude of you not to after giving us such a shock. So tell me, what other abilities did those geneticists hook you up with? Super strength? Accelerated healing? You know I’ve been thinking about buying a fight-club programme for my new holosuites. If you’re stronger than you look as well as smarter maybe you and I could expand our business partnership?”

“I’m not a freak-show, Quark…” Julian begins.

Garak reaches out to take Julian’s hand, turning it to expose his inner wrist and a set of yellow-brown fingerprint bruises. “These are from when Glinn Letok decided he wanted ‘a word’ with you four days ago. You were dining here with Legate Re’gal but he was called away on confidential business.”

Julian nods, embarrassed that he isn’t always able to take care of himself as well as he would like.

“Well then,” says Garak. “I think we can rule out accelerated healing.”

“You’ve been watching me.”

“It appears that you and I have been watching one another."

“I came to talk to you because I need to know. Are you going to try to… take me?”

Garak recoils as though Julian has affronted him, and then his face rearranges itself into an expression of something like concern. “My dear boy, while there are a number of so-called ‘men’ on this station who might desire you in spite of – or perhaps because of – the fact that you’re still a child, I can assure you I am not one of them.”

Julian feels his heart lurch and his face grow warm as he realises that Garak has misunderstood him. “No,” he says quickly. “I didn’t mean….” he stops, glancing over his shoulder towards Murot, Damar and the other Cardassian military officers, then continues in a hushed voice. “When it came out… what I am… in the reports it says the people who came to take me were from Starfleet Security, but at least some of them were intelligence agents. Legate Re’gal says that’s what you are. So I need to know, do you want what they wanted?”

“What did they want?” asks Garak

“They told me I was a threat to the Federation and that I needed to be locked away for the public good,” he says. “They were frightened of me, I think. They made me feel frightened of myself! But the ones who I think were from intelligence… they wanted to do things with me. They saw that a segment of the public would want to see me locked away and they wanted to be the ones to keep me. Maybe they wanted to experiment on me, or maybe they wanted to see if they could put me to work for them. Either way, they wanted to take my freedom. If that’s what you want, I won’t give it to you, and if anyone tries to take it by force, I’ll fight them with everything that I am.”

He can feel himself shaking with anger and fear. He clenches his hand around the glass of green whiskey and takes a large swig, feeling its burn in his sinuses and throat. 

“Your so-called intelligence service are fools,” says Garak, “and I can assure you that I _don’t_ want what they wanted.”

“Then what do you want from me?”

Garak’s smile somehow manages to be both fond and terrifying at the same time. “Only to offer you guidance and support in your efforts to adapt and thrive in your new circumstances,” he says. “My young friend, I’d like you to become my protégé.”


	3. Chapter 3

Alone in one of Quark’s holosuites, Julian begins to wonder what exactly he’s getting himself into.

He really ought to try to get into the habit of doing this at an earlier stage when making important life decisions.

“Not here,” Garak had told him – to Quark’s obvious disappointment - once they had ascertained a longer discussion was of mutual interest. “A few minutes of casual conversation at the bar will seem innocuous enough, especially given that you’ve already cultivated a reputation on this station for being somewhat brazen, but it would not be in either of our interests for our public association to extend to the point where it may become noteworthy. Finish your drink and then make your way upstairs to holosuite two. I’ll join you there shortly.”

Julian wonders if there is anyone specific Garak wishes to avoid having their encounter ‘noted’ by. He hasn’t forgotten Re’gal’s description of him as ‘a known enemy of Gul Dukat’s’.

Julian has only met Gul Dukat once. The Prefect of Bajor is not in the habit of spending his recreation time in Quark’s. Re’gal says this is because it would be unseemly for the sector commander to be seen socialising informally with his subordinates, although Quark thinks a well-founded fear of assassination is also a factor.

Dukat had, however, deigned to host an intimate celebration in honour of Union Day for the sector’s highest-ranking officials, and Re’gal had invited Julian to accompany him.

“You’re supposed to turn up to such occasions with something young and lovely on your arm,” the Legate had explained cheerfully, “unless you’re married, that is. Of course, an unmarried man of my standing is expected to bring something young, lovely and _female_ , so you’ll be viewed as a rather daring accessory. Dukat will take the impropriety of it as an affront, but since I outrank him he’ll just have to seethe over it quietly.” 

This last thought had seemed to delight Re’gal. As a civilian Legate, technically he _does_ outrank Dukat but as Prefect of Bajor Dukat occupies a more powerful position.

Every now and then Re’gal will say something to Julian about Dukat that suggests he is less than fond of the Prefect. He only does this in private – it sort of reminds Julian of the way his father complains to his mother when things at his latest job have inevitably started to go downhill. The idea that these powerful and imperious Cardassians might have anything in common with Julian’s screw-up of a father makes him want to laugh, and then it makes him want to cry as he is reminded that his parents are in prison because of him, and he will likely never see them again.

When he looks back Julian feels that he spent the weeks immediately after he left Earth in a state of shocked depression. One of his grandmother’s friends – a Vulcan professor named T’Kem - had smuggled him off-planet, hiding him at a weather control outpost in the mountains of Archer 4 where constant atmospheric storms made external scans notoriously unreliable. Confined to a small room there, he’d watched the story of his ‘unmasking’ as an augment and subsequent flight unfold across every news outlet in the sector;

_“… This ancient city was once part of the empire ruled by one of history’s most notorious tyrants: Khan Noonian Singh. Today, its people are reeling from the violence unleashed by another genetically-engineered monster…”_

_“… During her escape, Bashir savagely killed promising young Starfleet lieutenant Keira Heath…”_

_“… Throughout our history, augments have been distinguished not only by their inhuman intelligence but also by their terrifying savagery…”_

_“...A product of her parents’ design rather than a gift of nature to be loved unconditionally...”_

_“…would argue that by subjecting their daughter to genetic manipulation and removing the limitations that provide the necessary context for the experience of meaningful human choice, the Bashirs created something that cannot be considered ‘human’ at all…”_

_“… Superior ability breeds superior ambition.”_

“You have been tormenting yourself with these broadcasts for over a week and that is the first argument of merit I have heard any of these so called ‘experts’ put forward,” T’Kem had told him, switching the monitor off, “and that particular commentator was quoting a Vulcan.”

“You can’t blame them for being afraid,” Julian had replied. “Augments have been responsible for some of the greatest atrocities in human history.”

“The Vulcan government has lodged a complaint with the Federation Council against the Federation News Service over this,” T’Kem had countered. “Your case is so far removed from the context of the Eugenics Wars that it is illogical for them to frame it in this way. Humans have been using outdated bioconservative dogma to mute rational debate around genetic engineering and other branches of transhumanoid scientific inquiry for centuries now. Human prejudice has been allowed to dictate Federation policy in this area for too long.”

“So, you’re saying that on top of everything else now I’ve provoked a diplomatic incident?”

“Your grandmother would be proud,” said T’Kem, “and if she were here, she would tell you that you are allowing yourself to wallow in negative emotions. She would also tell you that these people are fundamentally wrong about you, but if you want to enlighten them then you will need to… I believe the expression she would use is ‘get your shit together’.”

“How do you know they’re wrong, though?” Julian had wanted to know. “How do you _know_ I’m not a monster?”

“I am one-hundred and eighty-six years old,” T’Kem had replied, “and the life I have lead has taught me to recognise a monster when I see one. I do not see one here.”

The setting for Dukat’s party had been a live holo-cast of the festivities in Lakarian city on Cardassia Prime. It placed the guests on a terrace overlooking the Imperial Plaza, a position Re’gal had told Julian would, in reality, be reserved for Cardassia’s most eminent citizens. Dukat had been seated at the head of the table, with his Bajoran mistress on his left and Re’gal on his right. Julian, seated to Re’gal’s right, had spent the evening making a game out of manoeuvring bottles of Kanar around the table so that while everyone else’s glasses remained full, the liqueur always seemed to bypass Gil Damar, who was seated opposite him. Re’gal caught onto his antics and joined in first, quickly followed by Dukat’s mistress, Damar's own wife and even Gul Dukat himself. “Doctor Niala Damar wouldn’t piss on Tora Naprem if she was on fire,” Re’gal had told him admiringly as Julian escorted him back to his quarters at the end of the night, “and yet you had the two of them playing a _game_ together.”

It had been an informative evening for Julian. He’d learned that Doctor Damar worried about her husband’s alcoholism and missed the man he had been before he’d become so dependent on drink. Gil Damar secretly thought Dukat’s relationship with Tora Naprem and his personal investment in the occupation were an embarrassment to Cardassia, but as a lowly Gil who only warranted inclusion in such gatherings due to his wife's position as the sector's Head of Medical Research he didn't have the power to speak of his concerns. Tora Naprem was surreptitiously avoiding alcohol and was lying about being allergic to the Bajoran lilacs that had decorated the table, though Julian hadn’t figured out the real reason why she’d been sneezing so much throughout the evening. Legate Re’gal and Gul Dukat held different views on the Bajoran independence movement, though both viewed the possibility of the occupation ending as something that would never happen in their lifetimes, and therefore an acceptably theoretical subject for dinnertime conversational sparring, an art for which Re’gal had a remarkable gift.

The lesson that had haunted Julian at the end of the night though, as he sat alone watching the stars move across the single viewport in his quarters as the station rotated, was the one that T’Kem had described to him months before; _The life I have lead has taught me to recognise a monster when I see one._

Julian had already known the occupation of Bajor was an atrocity, but he had not known what kind of man Dukat was. _He’s more like Khan than I could ever be,_ Julian had realised. _He looks at the Bajorans the way Khan looked at humans, as race of children to be ruled over by a stern father. What does it say about me that I just spent an evening pouring him drinks and charming his dinner guests? Does it make a difference that rather than thinking about how men like Khan and Dukat are made I’ve spent the whole night thinking about how they might be unmade? Does that make me ‘good’ or does it just make me a different kind of monster?_

The hum of a transporter startles him out of his reverie.

“Ah,” says Garak once the beam has released him, “here we are. You look surprised to see me; I _did_ tell you I’d be joining you here momentarily, did I not?”

“I was expecting you to use the door,” Julian finds himself explaining lamely

Garak inclines his head, his eyes widening as if to say _well, more fool you,_ but refrains from actually commenting. “Computer,” he says instead, “initiate programme Terra 47.”

They find themselves standing in a lush garden. The air is hot, but they are sheltered from the scorching sun by the dome-shaped crown of a large acacia tree, and the cool breeze blowing off of the blue river in front of them feels pleasant. The river is wide, and Julian can see feluccas sailing on it, and a colony of flamingos bathing at the water’s edge. 

He looks at Garak, disconcerted. He knows this place.

“The gardens at the Institute for Conflict Resolution in Khartoum, on Earth,” the Cardassian confirms. “One of your favourite places. I must admit I can see the appeal; the climate here is so much more pleasant than in most parts of your home world.” He settles himself cross-legged on the grass, gesturing to indicate that Julian should join him. “I often find it helpful in my line of work to give people from worlds throughout the galaxy the chance to talk in a setting where they feel comfortable and at home. Do you like it?”

Julian sits, stretching against the pressure his binder puts on his ribs and lower back in this unsupported seated position. If Garak notices his discomfort he has the grace not to mention it.

“It’s very accurate,” he says tentatively. 

“Your grandmother is a professor here,” Garak notes.

Julian shoots him an incredulous look. “Re’gal wasn’t kidding about the Obsidian Order,” he says. “You genuinely do know all about me, don’t you?”

“Really, my young friend, it was quite irresponsible of Legate Re’gal to put such a fanciful notion in your head. I occupy a minor position in the Cardassian Government, yet it seems he’d have you believe I’m some sort of spy.” He says this with a knowing smile. it’s almost as though he’s not really denying that he’s an agent at all, merely schooling Julian on the impropriety of referencing it so blatantly.

Julian finds himself nodding thoughtfully. “I… apologise for my misapprehension,” he says.

“That’s quite alright,” Garak replies with a smile and a nod of approval. “As to my knowledge of your background, I’m afraid that there’s very little about you that hasn’t been smeared across the news for all the quadrant to know.”

Julian quirks an eyebrow. “Oh, I think I’ve been able to keep one or two secrets.”

“You’re referring to your gender,” says Garak. “May I ask you a personal question in relation to that?”

“Go ahead.”

“Am I correct in understanding that you’re a male who has been misgendered as female because you were born with female sexual characteristics…” he stops and grimaces. “I apologise for my imprecise language; the Federation standard words for concepts relating to sex and gender are appallingly inadequate.”

Julian can’t help but smile at his frustration, “and here I was thinking that was the most precise way I’ve ever heard anyone put it,” he says. “You’re right, but how can you tell? I mean obviously, you know I was assigned female and lived as a girl until I left Earth, but how do you _know_ I’m male? Given that I’m a fugitive wouldn’t it be more logical to assume that this -” he indicates his own body with a swoop of his hands “- is just a disguise?”

“Don’t forget I’ve seen pictures and holos of you back on Earth,” Garak reminds him. “If I may say so, in the more recent ones you look more like an adolescent who hasn’t chosen their gender yet than a girl. It appears to me that your… exploration… of your gender identity predates the furore around your genetic background by months if not years.”

He’s right of course. Thinking about it makes Julian’s chest feel tight. “I knew from when I was seven or eight years old that I wasn’t supposed to be a girl,” he acknowledges.

What he does not say is that he worries, now, that Jules might have been a girl before their parents had them altered. He doesn’t think that Jules really understood what gender was. Julian had figured it out oh so quickly, had begun to call himself ‘Julian’ in his head around the same time he taught himself to read and realised he could slice a tennis ball and make it bounce exactly the way he wanted it to. He understands now why these things came to him so suddenly and all at once. Was it just that the enhancements had enabled him to understand the concept of gender for the first time, though, or had the enhancements changed him in that way? There is so much about what his parents had done to him he doesn’t understand. He wonders if he will ever have the chance to ask them to explain it.

“Seven or eight?” Garak repeats, “but if you knew that long ago, why have you waited until now to transition?” he pulls a face. “Transition! Is that really the best word you humans have for the concept?”

Julian laughs, “I take it that Kardasi has more a more ‘precise’ term?”

“Comparing Cardassian and human gender constructs is like comparing Kotra and Chess; there are some similarities in the basic principles, but one is significantly more nuanced than the other.”

“Go on,” Julian says. 

Garak smiles, and indulges him. “Alright,” he says. “Some of the human models I’m familiar with enable one to define one’s gender as a position on a two-dimensional spectrum. For Cardassians, it’s more like a three-dimensional array. Imagine, if you will, a map of a galaxy; true gender neutrality is the galactic centre. The more androgynous identities are the space surrounding this centre, while the extremes of different concepts of what you humans refer to as ‘masculinity,’ ‘femininity,’ ‘agenderness’ and ‘omnigenderness’ lie in the ‘galaxy’s’ outer reaches. Broadly speaking my people have one-hundred and twenty-six words for the different sectors of this ‘galaxy’. 

“So Cardassians have one hundred and twenty-six genders?”

“Well, no; those are just the basic singular genders. There are also those whose genders encompass more than one ‘sector’ of the galaxy and those whose genders shift or flow through the different sectors.”

“Okay,” says Julian. “So what’s _my_ Cardassian gender?”

Garak looks scandalised. “Assigning a gender to another person is impolite at best. It indicates that you see that person as socially inferior to the point where they lack the right to self-determination. We do it to orphans, bastards, criminals and other outcasts, and to Bajorans and to other subjugated species, but not to our equals. That said… your friend Legate Re’gal addresses you using the pronouns for a Tek’tu’ka. From what I see he’s in the right quadrant, but given that there are elements of your public persona that are... affected, it’s probably not entirely correct.”

“Tek’tu’ka?”

“‘Tek’ means a gentle heart and ‘tu’ means a strong mind, while ‘ka’ infers a masculine way of embodying these qualities.”

Julian takes a moment to thing about the implications of this. “Right,” he says eventually. “Noted; Kardasi has a superior vocabulary for talking about gender.”

“Kardasi has a superior vocabulary for talking about most things,” Garak amends primly.

“Perhaps I should learn to speak it?”

“You should,” Garak agrees, “although I must warn you most aliens find it to be something of a challenge. Kardasi has over twenty million words in everyday use, whereas your Federation Standard contains a mere six hundred thousand. Now, returning to my original question; why wait so many years to, ah…”

“… to come out?” Julian supplies.

This time Garak manages to refrain from commenting on the inadequacy of Julian’s native tongue, though he does pull a rather sour face.

“I was afraid to tell my parents. My family is a web of dysfunctional relationships. My mother comes from a deeply traditional family who won’t speak to her because she chose not to follow their religion. My father comes from a family of distinguished intellectuals and is a great disappointment to them. Growing up I always felt as though I was supposed to make everything alright – there was always so much pressure to be flawless. My father thought I could redeem him, I think; if I was brilliant enough, successful enough then it wouldn’t matter that he was a lazy, irresponsible, resentful little man because he’d be able to point to me and say ‘look at this child that I made, isn’t she perfect?”

Garak lays a hand on his shoulder. There is something tender and real about the touch, something Julian hasn’t felt in a long time.

“I understand,” he says.

Julian chances a sideways glance at the Cardassian – either Garak is a very good actor or he really does.

Julian draws a deep breath. “In the end, I just wanted to get away from them. I thought it would be easier to start living as a boy if I could just get myself to somewhere where I could make a fresh start. My parents knew I wanted to join Starfleet,” he winces at the bitterness in his own voice as he sneers around the word’s first syllable, “but they thought I was going to wait until I was sixteen to apply. One of my teachers encouraged me to seek early admission… she knew I was smart enough and that things at home weren’t good. I went to take the academy entrance tests and…”

He finds himself unable to go on. His throat feels tight and his voice sounds high and soft and _wrong_ , and he can feel tears stinging in his eyes. He hasn’t cried since he left Earth, and he isn’t about to let himself start now.

“… and that was how they found out about your enhancements?” Garak guesses. His hand remains a comforting weight on Julian’s shoulder. “Your performance in the tests was beyond what a human ought to have been able to achieve?”

Julian nods mutely.

Garak sighs, his thumb rubbing small circles on Julian’s collarbone. “It’s okay to be upset,” he says quietly. “You’ve been through a remarkable set of traumas. You’ve survived. You’re doing so well.”

It’s too much, this kindness. He doesn’t deserve it. He wasn’t exactly innocent in what happened.

“Tell me,” Garak says gently.

“When I ran,” he begins, “they took my parents into custody but not my grandmother; she and her friends helped me leave Earth. They let her talk to my mother, before I went, and afterwards she brought me a bag of my things. She packed things I thought… things I’d kept hidden. Hormone blockers, clothes that helped me look like a boy… and I realised my mum knew.” 

He wipes his eyes on the back of his sleeve, “she knew and she was okay with it and she was just waiting for me to tell her when I was ready and if I’d just been brave enough we could have talked about it, and… and…”

Julian breaks. Everything he’s been holding together these past few months falls apart and he is sitting here in the park where he used to play as a child with this strange Cardassian and he is sobbing so hard he can’t breathe.

Slowly, gently – as if he’s giving Julian the chance to refuse in case it’s too much – Garak wraps and arm around him and pulls him into an embrace, tucking his head beneath his chin so that Julian can hide his face in his shoulder.

“It’s okay,” Garak tells him, “you need to grieve it so you can let go. You’ve been so brave….”

 _Alright then_ , Julian tells himself as Garak continues to whisper soothing nonsense to him, _just this once. Just this once I’ll let myself cry about it all, but when this is over that’s it; I can’t be a child anymore after this._

“Now then,” Garak says once Julian’s tears have subsided, “we’ll need to go over the finer points of your flight from the Federation so that I can take care of any… lingering details that might connect you to Jules Bashir. Are you ready to begin?”

Julian pulls back and wipes his eyes.

“Yes,” he says, “I am.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who had left comments and kudos on this story. Thank you as well for your patience in waiting for updates - reading WIPs can be frustrating but you have really helped to keep me engaged with this work and build some much-needed self esteem as a writer! 
> 
> The first two chapters of this story took me two weekends each to write. This one took four! There is one more chapter to go, which will revert to Garak's POV, and I'm aiming to publish it over the weekend of July 22nd and 23rd.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: This chapter revolves around two characters having an uncomfortable conversation about ableism and ableist abuse. It also contains a brief but vivid depiction of non-sexual violence being inflicted on a child. I have upped the rating of this story to 'mature' with this in mind.

“You’re a bastard,” Quark says as Garak watches his peculiar new acquaintance retreat towards the holosuites, “you know that, don’t you?”

Garak turns his attention back to the Ferengi. “Of course,” he says mildly, “Cardassians don’t allow those whose misfortune it is to have been born into such low circumstances to forget what they are.”  


“You lied to him,” Quark presses, pouring another drop of Aldebaran whiskey into each of their glasses.  


“I told him what he needed to hear,” Garak replies. It isn’t an argument, but it isn’t quite acquiescence either.  


Recognising the evasion, the Ferengi huffs an exasperated laugh. “Garak,” he says, “Have I ever told you about my brother?”  


“No,” says Garak. “Though you do have your uses, I’ve never thought them to be significant enough to warrant the effort it would take for me feign interest in your family.”  


“You have dinner at my bar at least once every time you visit this station,” Quark reminds him. “While you eat, I do my best to satiate your voracious appetite for gossip by sharing every little rumour that’s tickled my lobes since we last met, especially anything concerning this sector’s senior officials and Gul Dukat’s inner circle. A few days after you leave, additional replicator credits are mysteriously attributed to the bar’s account. Garak, I have to say I’ve enjoyed this little arrangement. It’s tactful, polite, subtle… just like you.”  


“Thank you, Quark… though I have to admit I’m not sure what makes you think the error in your replicator accounts is in any way connected with our little chats. You can’t possibly presume a humble civil servant has the influence to arrange such a thing?”  


“When it comes to the scope of your influence, Garak, I think I’ll keep an open mind,” says Quark. “Anyway, now things have changed. If I understand the situation correctly, you’re asking for my complicity not only in harbouring a fugitive but in cultivating said fugitive as an intelligence source you can use to gain access to the sector prefecture and the information you’ve been looking for here these past few months. I’m not saying I’m not open to it,” he reassures Garak when he opens his mouth to argue, “but what you’re proposing is more hazardous for me than our current arrangement. Ferengi custom dictates that before we embark on such a risky venture together, small talk of a more intimate variety must be exchanged. I trust you understand?”  


Recognising the game, Garak smiles his most beautifully facetious smile. “Quark,” he begins, “I appear to have forgotten my manners; I’ve been so focused on our interesting new friend this evening that I’ve completely neglected to ask after your family. I understand you have a brother?”

“Better,” says Quark with a curt, sideways nod, “and yes, I do have a brother; how sweet of you to remember.”

“And now that you mention it, I have a story to tell you about him; my brother’s an idiot, and I’m not using the word flippantly. He’s the stupidest Ferengi I’ve ever known. Didn’t learn to speak properly until he was nine or ten. Oh, he was a quite the chatterbox – Morn here is positively taciturn by comparison - but no-one could understand half of what he was saying. He’d follow me around the house going ‘Quark, Quark, Quark’ for hours on end. He was clumsy, too; I’ve seen drunk Pakleds with better motor control. He didn’t learn to walk until after he lost his first set of lobes, and you should have seen him trying to manoeuvre slips of gold into the deposit box in the toy treasury my father bought him; it'd make you want to check his hands to make sure he actually had opposable thumbs.” 

“His biggest problem, though, was that he couldn’t count. How's a Ferengi supposed to do business if he can’t even understand that ten is a bigger number than five? What can he aspire to in life if he doesn’t understand that ‘more’ is good and ‘less’ is bad?” 

Quark shakes his head, takes a stiff gulp of whiskey, and pours himself a top up. “You have any siblings, Garak?” 

Garak has to work to suppress a laugh. “Not as far as I’m aware,” he says.

“Lucky you. Parents with more than one child always have a favourite… you can’t imagine the turmoil of laying awake at night, wondering if it’s you.”

This time Garak really does laugh.

“Stop that,” says Quark, “You’ll scare my customers. Anyway, by the time I was thirteen years old, it was clear to me that I wasn’t Moog… I mean, that I wasn’t my mother’s. Rom got the best of everything; the juiciest tube grubs at dinner, the most expensive toys. When he realised the other kids coveted them he’d - ” Quark’s voice cracks a little “- he’d offer to share.”

“Then, when Rom was seven, our father died and Uncle Frin became our family's financial administrator until I reached the Age of Ascention. Everyone who met Rom knew there was something different about him, and Frin was no exception. He’d look at my brother with such loathing. 'Ishka,' he said to my mother, 'there’s something wrong with that child, and if we don’t get it fixed he’s going to be a liability to our family for the rest of his life.'"

“‘There’s a doctor I know on Balancar,’ he told us, ‘he’s using experimental neuroengeneering and genetic therapy techniques to treat developmental disorders in children. I think it would be worth the investment of going to see him’”

“So off we went to Balancar – Frin, Rom and I. My mother begged and even threatened Frin not to go through with it. ‘If you damage him, I’ll kill you in your sleep’ she said. Frin told her she was being hysterical.”

Quark drains his glass and pours himself another. “You know Garak, since you’ve become something of a regular here these past few months… well, let’s just say you’ve been the subject of a rumour or two yourself. You’re not a well-known man, though, are you? In fact, the only people on this station who really seem to know you are Legate Re’gal and Gul Dukat.”

That’s probably true enough. Garak and Dukat have their history, and Re’gal is a veteran of Cardassian politics, one of a handful who might just be old and observant enough to have taken note of Enabran Tain’s protégé over the years.

“Of course,” Quark continues, “I never put much stock in what they had to say. If you tell me you’re a humble civil servant, who am I to disagree? Only… that doesn’t quite explain your little chat with our new hew-mon friend, does it? The one where he as good as told you he knew you were an intelligence agent and you didn’t correct him? So now I’m thinking, maybe there’s something in the rumours after all. Maybe you really do work for… well, for a certain organisation it would be vulgar to name. Maybe there’s even some truth to what Gul Dukat has to say about you?”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t seem too distressed by the fact that Bajor’s revered prefect appears to have given me an unfavourable character reference,” Garak says sourly.

“He said you tortured his father to death?”

Garak rolls his eyes. “How predictably melodramatic of him. Alright – in the spirit of exchanging ‘intimate small talk’, I confess that I have tortured, on occasion, to protect Cardassia’s interests. I can’t say it’s my preferred method of operation. I don’t enjoy it.”

“Have you tortured children?”

Ah. So that’s what this is about.

“No one that young. I’d like to think I have the skills to extract any information I might need from a teenager without having to resort to such brutal methods.”

Quark nods soberly, appearing to accept this as the truth.

“What happened on Balancar?” Garak presses.

Quark sips his drink. Garak holds his glass out for a top-up, and the Ferengi obliges him.

“There was this family; a human mother and a Betazoid father, both retired Starfleet officers. They had twin daughters, maybe 9, 10 years old? I only ever saw one of them. Her name was Tilaine – I remember it because Rom liked her, and when Rom liked someone he liked to say their name _a lot_. Her sister Silar was a patient, one of the ones being augmented.”

“The day Silar started her treatment… one moment Tilaine and Rom were playing together, the next moment Tilaine was laying on the ground, arching her back and screaming in agony. At first, I thought she was having some kind of fit, and the I realised… she was feeling what they were doing to her sister. It went on and on… Ferengi scream like that, when we’re terrified, but I’ve never heard a noise like than come from another humanoid. When the nurses came to hold her down she fought like a wild thing.”

“The parents were distraught; I found out later that their twins had been born when they were on a long-range mission to the beta quadrant. They conceived them naturally, didn’t see a specialist until after they were born. Tilaine was born healthy, but Silar was born with a developmental disorder.”

“Always a significant risk with unplanned hybrid pregnancies,” Garak finds himself saying. “Look at this occupation; it’s not illegal for a Cardassian to rape a Bajoran citizen, but the penalties for conceiving a child with one are severe because the last thing the Cardassian state wants is to be saddled with the responsibility of...” he stops, suddenly aware that his bartender’s face has taken on an uncharacteristically hard expression. “What happened next?” he asks, “to Silar and Tilaine, I mean?”

“They admitted Tilaine to another wing of the hospital, kept her pumped full of psi-blockers while they finished her sister’s treatments. I went looking for her there. I wanted to ask her what it had felt like. I thought it would help me to... to understand what they were planning on doing to my brother.”

“I found her curled up in her hospital bed, hooked up to an IV. She hadn’t eaten since before her sister started her treatments, couldn’t keep solid food down. She seemed… depressed, listless, sick. You know what she said to me? ‘She doesn’t want to be smart. She’s happy the way she is. She just wants to be Silar.’”

He shrugs. “I knew what I had to do then. I went to uncle Frin and asked him to wait. I reminded him that the procedure was expensive. ‘Let’s leave it a couple more years, see what skills he develops on his own,’ I said, ‘we might be able to go ahead with a less expensive package later’. He wouldn’t listen. In the end, the only way I could stop the procedure was to purchase the liability myself.”

“Your _bought_ your own brother from your uncle?”

“Not my most astute business venture,” Quark admits. “I couldn’t pay up front, and he really screwed me over on the interest. Still, my mother seemed to like me better after that.”

“So where’s Rom now?” Garak finds himself genuinely wanting to know.

“Still on Ferenginar,” says Quark. “Still an idiot. Still happy. We found some less extreme treatments for him; one of his therapists suggested fitting him with a modified universal translator. Damn thing was expensive, but I had some latinum set aside for my apprentice fee… it was worth it. It deciphered Rom’s unique speech patterns and translated them so the rest of us could better understand what he was saying. Once he could understand _us_ better, it was easier to explain other concepts to him... though I’m sorry to say he never really seemed to get the hang of greed.”

“And your uncle Frin?”

“Started making noises about taking Rom back to Balancer a couple of years later, but he died in his sleep before he could make any plans.”

“How sad,” says Garak.

“Yes,” Quark says vaguely. “It was very sudden. You know, he forgave all my debts to him in his will. I always thought that was odd; he was never a particularly generous man in life.”

Quark turns the whiskey bottle upside-down, letting the last drops slide into his glass. “I’m not going to sugar-coat this Garak,” he says, “I don’t like hew-mons. They seem benign, but their hegemony over the so-called Federation is frankly alarming. They’ve colonised more of the Alpha Quadrent than any other species, spreading their sanctimonious brand of economic socialism wherever they go. Hew-mons, Garak, are well on their way to conquering this entire galaxy, and the worst thing is they’re going about it so deviously most people haven’t even noticed.”

“Julian, now… he doesn’t have that smug, ‘look at me, I’m a hew-mon, currency based economics is beneath me’ attitude. He’s willing to roll up his sleeves and make an honest profit…”

“He counts cards,” Garak says dubiously, “and I’m fairly certain he’s using visual ballistics to win at dabo.”

“‘Honest Profit’ is just a figure of speech,” Quark says dismissively “I’m a Ferengi! _I_ don’t care whether he’s earning his latinum honestly or not, so long as he’s not swindling _me_. My point is, the kid’s got lobes. My customers like him. _I_ like him… and I’m not sure getting mixed up with the likes of you is in his best interests.”

“Your concern is touching, but unnecessary,” Garak assures him.

“Is it?” asks Quark. “Garak, I don’t know what your business in this sector is, but I do know you’re a dangerous man with dangerous enemies. Julian’s been working for me for three weeks; long enough for me to get a feel for what his weaknesses are. He wants to help the Bajorans, he has an overactive sense of adventure, and he’s got secrets. Those things make him vulnerable.”

“It’s not his vulnerability I’m interested in,” Garak retorts, “it’s his _potential_. I’m not saying I don’t agree that what his parents had done to him was obscene, Quark, but I can’t undo it. Nobody can, and now he’s going to spend his whole life running and hiding from people who want to exploit him for it whether he likes it or not.”

“You could take him somewhere safe,” Quark argues.

“Safe? Quark, even if I could find such a place, he wouldn't want to stay there, and how long do you think I could keep him there against his will? The only thing that anyone can do for him now is to teach him to stay one step ahead, and can you honestly say you can think of anyone more suited to that task than a Cardassian Bastard?” 

“I suppose not,” Quark admits.

“Look,” says Garak, “It’s my intention to involve him in my work on Terok Nor, to exploit his position here and his connection to Legate Re’gal. He has to start somewhere. I won’t ask him to do anything more than observe…”

“… If you think he’s going to wait for you to ask, you haven’t been paying as much attention to him as I thought.”

“You’ll keep an eye on him for me, steer him away from trouble.”

“Alright,” says Quark, “How's this? If the kid asks me for a contract he can have one, but _he_ has to ask, Garak. I’m not going to stop you from going upstairs to the holosuite and making your offer, but in the end, it should be his choice. Otherwise we’re no better than his damned parents.”

And no better than Tain, Garak finds himself thinking.

"A reasonable request," he says, "and one that reminds me I have an appointment to keep."

Quark hands Garak a data pad with his bar bill. The service charge looks obscenely inflated. He puts his thumbprint on it anyway and passes it back to the Ferengi

“Quark,” he says, “it’s been an unexpected pleasure getting to know you better.”

Quark grins, exposing every single one of his pointed yellow teeth. "Likewise, Garak," he says. "Likewise."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was intended to be the first third of the final chapter of this story. This section ended up being longer and more harrowing than I expected, and when I was editing the chapter yesterday I realised that narratively and emotionally there was too much going on for it to work as a single chapter. So I've split it in two, and now I have one last 4000 word chapter to edit and post before this story is done :) Look out for the final chapter within the next 7 days (and I really mean final this time - I've written the ending!)
> 
> If you like this chapter, the first chapter of this story's immediate sequel (also written and waiting to be edited) features Rom and four-year-old Nog arriving on Terok Nor, and as much as I've enjoyed spending the last two months writing a 15,000 word, 5 chapter story in which Quark, Garak and Bashir sit in the bar and talk for three hours, stuff actually happens in it :D


	5. Chapter 5

Garak’s skill in the field of enhanced interrogation is one of the pillars upon which his reputation as one of the Obsidian Order’s most effective operatives is built. 

The conversation he intends to have with Bashir will utilize this expertise, though as his objective is to recruit the boy rather than to subdue him or force his capitulation, his approach will be uncharacteristically gentle. 

“I often find it helpful in my line of work to give people from worlds throughout the galaxy the chance to talk in a setting where they feel comfortable and at home,” is the explanation he offers Bashir as the boy takes in the holo-program's familiar landscape.

The program itself is simple enough; the kind of multisensory virtual landscape humanoids have been using technology to escape to for centuries. 

The preparation work one must usually complete before immersing the subject of an interrogation in such a scenario is difficult and unpleasant; one must allow them to be physically and psychologically tortured for a sustained period until their adrenaline and cortisol levels indicate a sustained state of anxiety and fear.

The unexpected transition into an environment where the subject feels ‘safe’ then stimulates dopamine production and a desire for emotional release. Whether this release is through anger, tears, passion or joy doesn’t particularly matter to Garak, although of course variety in one’s work is always nice. A Starfleet captain once provided him with a wealth of information on the defensive capabilities of the Federation border colonies after Garak took her to the upper canopies of Tellar’s cloud-woods, weeping with joy to be back in the forests of her childhood after months spent rotting in a Cardassian prison. On another occasion, a Romulan diplomat had confessed to being a member of the Tal Shiar as Garak held him in his arms amidst the long, purple grass of the Chula Valley.

The Terran Institute for Conflict Resolution is a monstrosity of twenty-second century utopian Earth architecture. The sides of its tiered pyramids are covered with greenery and sunlight gleams off its solar panels and ionisation spires, its fountains and mosaic paths. The place was built in the early era of Human space exploration when the dominant rhetoric proclaimed humanity had entered a new age of peace and enlightenment. 

Like Cardassians, humans are an aggressive species whose nation states were constantly at war with one another until the development of warp-drive presented them with new frontiers to conquer.

This land had been among those most devastated by Earth’s conflicts. The World Wars, The Water Wars, The Oil Wars, The Eugenics Wars, The Wars of Colonialism, The Post Atomic Horror… from the dawn of the age of mechanical warfare to the formation of the United Earth Government, every major conflict in human history seemed to have touched this place. To build a centre dedicated to the study of making peace in a such a city smacks of the particular mawkishness Garak has come to expect from Terrans.

Nevertheless, the profile of Bashir Garak has been building indicates that this is where he will feel safest, so this is where they have come… and sure enough, Bashir begins to talk.

He talks about his gender, about his relationship with his father, about applying to join Starfleet and discovering the secret his parents had kept from him for almost ten years. When he looks to be on the verge of tears, Garak is kind and understanding, calls him ‘brave’, tells him he is coping well.  


When his kindness pushes Bashir over the edge, Garak offers an embrace and holds him while he allows his tears to fall.

He feels smaller and softer than he looks, curled into Garak’s side like this. Despite what Garak said to Quark about being unable to protect Julian, for a moment he feels a desire to try, to take the boy away from Terok Nor and find somewhere to hide him. He’s a fascinating little thing, heartbreakingly lovely in a way that transcends his physical beauty. He won’t stay this way, of course – the universe is too cruel to allow it – but there is a small part of Garak that wants to care for Julian, keep him safe and warm and well-fed, give a soft bed to sleep in and ensure nobody but Garak ever touches him.

Nobody _but Garak?_ Where the hell had _that_ thought come from?

While it isn’t unusual for a mentor and their protégé to enjoy a sexual relationship, Garak had been speaking truthfully when he'd assured Julian that he didn’t want him like that.

Humans typically view adolescence as a time of sexual awakening and exploration, but Bashir’s life on the run, marked by unrelenting anxiety, exhaustion and fear, may have inhibited this aspect of his identity. Garak has had several opportunities to observe the effects of such a life on the mammalian brain; a lack of libido is a common physiological reaction to complex trauma, while sexual repression is a common psychological response to sexual violence. Garak is reasonably certain that nobody has hurt Bashir like this, but the precautions the boy has taken to limit his exposure to threats of rape – becoming something of a paramour to the powerful but seemingly asexual Legate Re’gal, for example – indicate that he is aware of the pervasiveness of sexual violence on Terok Nor under Dukat’s administration as well as his own particular vulnerability.

The other set of traumas Bashir is facing in this regard are unimaginable to Garak. Genetic augmentation itself is not illegal on Cardassia, but to subject anyone, least of all a child, to such procedures without taking all possible steps to obtain that person’s consent is a terrible crime. Garak can’t help but wonder how the revelation that this was done to him interacts with Bashir’s gender dysphoria

All in all, Bashir’s profile indicates an aversion to sex. Garak suspects that what enables Bashir to enact the part of a hustler and courtesan so convincingly is there isn’t anything ‘real’ going on there, no risk that the act will trigger any unwanted emotional cross-referencing. The performance is pure mimicry, executed to a standard that even Garak with all his years of Obsidian Order training can only admire.

So Garak pushes away the odd surge of affection he feels for the boy, dismisses it as the remnant of an unfulfilled longing he himself had felt when he was Julian’s age, already being hammered into an implement meant only to be used in the service of the state. Affection had not served Garak well then; it is unlikely to serve Julian any better now.

“Now then,” he says once Bashir’s tears have subsided, “we’ll need to go over the finer points of your flight from the Federation so that I can take care of any… lingering details that might connect you to Jules Bashir. Are you ready to begin?”

Bashir pulls back and wipes his eyes.

“Yes,” he says, “I am.”

So the story of his escape unfolds; from Earth to Archer Four, to Farius, to the Soukara system, to New Sydney and finally to Terok Nor. No wonder Starfleet lost his trail. Six months lying low in non-aligned space... no, six months lying low _in a very small region of_ non-aligned space not far from the Federation-Cardassian border. Farius, known for the resourcefulness of its smugglers, is the most frequently used point of transit for those wishing to travel between Cardassia and the Federation now that the two powers are at war; the Obsidian Order has sent several operatives into Federation Space using the filthy little world as a gateway. Garak finds himself contemplating the possibility that there was more to Bashir's decision to come to this sector than a desire to keep running.

Bashir doesn’t say very much about his confrontation with Starfleet; his parent's arrest, his own flight and the young Lieutenant he supposedly murdered. That's clearly where the worst of the trauma lies. Garak doesn't see any need to probe more deeply into what happened yet, but it does present some interesting questions.

Garak has worked on dozens of operations targeting Starfleet, and over the years he has come to realise there is something hidden there. Whatever it is, it has walls around it, and no matter how carefully Garak runs his fingertips across the surfaces of those walls he can never find any trace of a door.

It seems likely that whatever hides behind the walls is responsible for the failed attempt to abduct Bashir, and now some accident of fate has left Garak with the uniquely gifted little human it tried to snatch away into the darkness sitting in his open palm.

Perhaps one day, he’ll use Bashir to lure whatever it is out to play. That day can wait, and in the meantime, Garak has a more pressing use for the boy.

“Where do you plan to go next?” he asks. “I can’t imagine you intend to continue your career as a professional gambler indefinitely?" 

“I thought I might go to Bajor." Bashir says, not _quite_ casually enough.  


“A bold choice,” Garak remarks carefully. “I’ve heard the conflict between our administration and the Bajoran resistance is beginning to heat up down there.”

“Hmmm,” says Bashir, “you know… I met Gul Dukat a few days ago,” the darting sidelong glance that accompanies the comment is so quick anyone else might have missed it. Garak hasn’t mentioned Dukat to Bashir, so why is the boy fishing to see what Garak thinks of him?

“My condolences,” he says evenly.

"It wasn’t unpleasant. In fact, I’d say it was quite instructive. Re’gal and Dukat got into a discussion about Bajoran independence. Dukat made the argument that if Cardassia pulled out of this sector tomorrow, Bajor would descend into factional civil war. He doesn’t think the Bajorans are capable of governing themselves.”

“The great political debate of the moment,” says Garak. “It rages in the Cardassian Assembly and from the most hallowed universities to the most disreputable taverns, and now apparently at the dinner-table of Gul Dukat himself.”

“Next thing you know even the Bajoran’s will have something to say about it,” Bashir says dryly 

“Do you think Dukat’s right?” Garak asks.

Bashir hesitates. “No,” he says uncertainly.

He’s holding back. “What does your friend Legate Re’gal think?” Garak presses.

“That Dukat’s administration deliberately plays the secularists and the religious fundamentalists off against each other… and that the lack of a common vision of a united Bajor undermines the resistance and the rest of the Bajoran independence movement.” 

Interesting. 

Someone – a high placed someone – on Terok Nor has been leaking information about Cardassian military operations in the sector to the Bajoran resistance for over a year now. Within the same timeframe, Gul Dukat has survived two separate assassination attempts, and every operative Garak has tried to place on Terok Nor has met with an untimely end. Garak has worked in intelligence long enough to know there must be a connection between these three things. If he were allowed to operate from Terok Nor himself, he would have found it by now, but Tain has forbidden him from getting too close to Dukat, and the fleeting visits he has been able to make to the station have been suspiciously uninformative. 

He has suspects, Tohan Re’gal, the most notable of them – Garak’s surveillance of the Legate was what initially brought Julian to his attention - but other than an entirely understandable contempt for Dukat’s politics and personal indiscretions Garak can’t find anything that implicates him. Quark has brought him rumours suggesting both Thrax Sa’kat and Doctor Niena Damar also feel conflicted about the way Dukat administers the occupation, but both seem too patriotic to go as far as consorting with the Resistance. Then, of course, there’s the mistress; Tora Naprem holds a doctorate in regenerative design and comes from a family of prominent collaborators. She’s a step up from Dukat’s last Bajoran whore. Garak has a hard time believing a woman like her could feel any genuine affection for a man like Dukat.

Perhaps it’s time for Legate Re’gal to be recalled to Cardassia. If he could be persuaded to speak about Dukat’s mismanagement of the Bajoran sector in the Assembly as frankly as he seems to have been speaking to this little human in the privacy of his quarters, it might help persuade Central Command that Dukat should be replaced by a commander more suited to the task of managing a controlled, strategic withdrawal. This, Garak believes, is the right path for Cardassia to follow. The Occupation must end, but in a dignified way, so it’s clear to the rest of the quadrant that the might of the Union is untarnished.

“What do you think of Re’gal’s judgement?” he asks Bashir

Bashir shrugs, “He’s good at Kotra,” he offers, “better than the military officers, anyway – they all play the same way. Advance, expand, conquer for the glory of The Union, hold on to your territory at all costs. Sometimes that’s not the best way to win. Sometimes the good will of your opponent has more strategic value than the territory itself. Sometimes compromising or letting go makes you stronger.”

What an appallingly human way of putting things. 

“Don’t look so disgusted,” Bashir chides him, “That’s how Re’gal plays, and I haven’t beaten him yet. I will, though, one day soon; one bold move, that’s all it will take. It’s been so long since anyone’s done anything to truly surprise him that he’s begun to think it can’t happen.”

“It’s a travesty that your education in Kotra has been left in the hands of such a player,” Garak tells him. “One day soon, you and I shall have a game, and then you will begin to learn how to really play.”

Bashir’s eyes grow wide. Garak wonders fleetingly if he was born with those eyes. Surely even the most hubristic of surgeons wouldn’t have dared to create something so beautiful…

“Garak,” Bashir says chidingly, “was that… did you just flirt with me?”

He hadn’t meant to.

“Yes,” he says calmly. “As your mentor, it’s my responsibility to further your education in the art of conversation, including what you call ‘flirting’; it’s an essential component of Cardassian discourse. You should know, though, that the men who... converse with you in this way in Quark’s bar do so because you present a façade of sexual confidence. If Re’gal knew that you were still… uncertain about your sexual identity he would not pursue you in the way he has. He might not be the most dignified of Cardassians, but he’s generally regarded as honourable.”

“Sexual identity isn’t the thing I’m uncertain of,” Bashir says unabashedly. “I’ve felt attracted to all sorts of people. Men, mostly, but there was a Vulcan girl on Earth who… well, you know. It’s _me_ I’m uncomfortable with. I don’t feel right in my body, and I don’t quite know what I’m going to do about that, but until I figure it out I don’t really want to think about being physically intimate with anyone.”

That sounds… surprisingly mature. Garak makes a note to research human sexual reassignment… afterall, being able to offer the boy assistance in this regard might increase the leverage Garak has over him.

“So what do you think about the future of Bajor?” he asks, to steer the conversation back towards his more immediate concern.

Bashir shrugs, “I don’t know that I have any relevant insights… I’ve barely been in this sector a month.”

“And over the course of that month you’ve been seen drinking and playing games with officers of the Cardassian military on an increasingly regular basis and have become the paramour to one of the most influential politicians in the sector. Why do I have the feeling you’re not just here for the company?”

Another shrug, “a man’s got to make a living somehow,” Bashir says. “Garak, how big is this program? Are we tied to this spot or can we go for a walk?”

“As I understand it, we’re on an island in the middle of the confluence of Earth’s longest river,” Garak replies, thrown by the non-sequitur but unwilling to show it. “We should be able to go anywhere on the island itself, but the river and the shores on either side are purely visual effects.”

“Excellent,” says Bashir, pushing himself to his feet. Garak is slightly mortified when the boy offers him a hand.

“I’m not decrepit, you know,” he says, but he lets Bashir pull him up anyway.

“You’re at least twice as old as I am,” Bashir points out.

“True,” says Garak, “although you won’t be able to claim that for many more years.”

“We’re going to be friends for years, then?” Bashir says brightly.

“We are not friends at all, yet,” Garak corrects him, “I am choosing to take a share of responsibility for your well-being and education because the idea of a person with your particular set of talents flitting about the galaxy with no training or discipline is unacceptable.”

“Are you planning to discipline me?” 

“Only if you continue to mistake crude innuendo for respectable Cardassian flirtation.”

Julian laughs. Garak doesn’t think he has ever enjoyed the sound of another person’s laughter quite so much.

The boy leads him down a mosaic pathway that follows the river downstream. Garak understands that this is the tributary known as the Blue Nile and that it meets the White Nile at the northernmost point of the Island. He wonders if the second tributary will actually live up to its name, as the Blue Nile looks distinctly brown to his eyes. The wading birds fishing along its banks are some of the strangest looking creatures Garak has ever seen.

“Those birds are alarmingly pink,” he tells Bashir, "how on Earth has such a flamboyant-looking species managed to survive?"

“The Flamingos? They’re actually born grey but their diet contains high levels of a natural dye that turns them pink over time.” He smirks, “I wonder if it would work on Cardassians?”

“Don’t even think about it.” Garak warns.

“I wouldn’t try it on _you_ ,” Bashir assures him, “I was thinking maybe we could hack Gul Dukat’s personal replicator.”

Garak shakes his head. “What a despicable scheme,” he says. “If that’s the kind of harm augments dream of inflicting on the galaxy it’s no wonder the Federation is so afraid of you. Perhaps I should have you locked up after all?”

Bashir gasps, “I can’t believe you’re joking about that!” he says.

“What makes you so sure that I am?” he asks, amused. “Regardless, you’ve rather shown your hand there. You’re not a fan of Gul Dukat’s, are you?”

“Neither are you,” Bashir counters, “Re’gal says the two of you are ‘known enemies’. What’s that about, then?”

“Nothing more than a childish grudge on Dukat’s part,” Garak assures him. “Do you have a destination in mind for this little excursion, or are we just taking in the air?”

The question is prompted in part by the fact that their stroll appears to have led them to a dead end. Their path is blocked by a high wall covered with colourful flowering vines.  


“I wanted to show you something,” Bashir explains, “come on.”

‘Coming on’ might be easier said than done; Bashir climbs the wall with the ease of a Risian Feather Monkey, as though he’s done it a hundred times before. It isn’t until he’s sitting on top looking down at Garak that he seems to realize it might not be so easy for the other man.

“They don’t teach you to climb in the Obsidian Order?” he wonders aloud. “Computer, adjust programme to position players three metres to the North of current bearing.”

The movement leaves Julian floating in mid-air. He lands on the balls of both feet and one-hand, graceful as a Terran panther.

Garak looks around. “Now, this is a side of Earth you don’t see very often.”

There are no mosaic paths or neatly manicured lawns on this side of the wall. The grass is coarse and waist-high.

Julian grins, pushing through it towards a small cluster of houses built from white-washed mud brick. “It’s here,” he replies. “You just need to know where to look. Most of the farmers here sold their land to the government in the early twenty-first century, after they built the bridge," he waves a hand to indicate the steel and concrete monstrosity that connects the small island to the cities on either side of the river. “A few stayed, and so did their children, and their children’s children. When the Earth Gov built the Institute, they built around the village; I guess whoever programmed the drone that filmed your holo-program didn’t specify not to include this part of the island.”

“It looks abandoned,” Garak remarks. The grass has grown high even in within the tiny village itself. The trees in the gardens are overgrown and full of colourful songbirds, and the houses are crumbling.

“No-one's lived here for nearly a hundred years, now,” Bashir explains, “before that, some of my ancestors did. I come here… I _used to_ come here all the time.”

He leads Garak around the back of one of the houses; the rear wall faces the river, and is the only one still intact. It features a striking mural.

“This program was filmed recently,” Bashir remarks. “It’s only been like this for a couple of years.”

The mural depicts a single figure, a woman who’s colouring and features bear some resemblance to Julian’s; her large eyes and full lips are more accentuated than his, and her hair is tightly wrapped in a yellow scarf. She is looking out across a painted landscape that shows the confluence, the point where the two rivers join and become a single, great river that flows towards the horizon and the stars. One corner of the picture is covered by night sky, and someone has written three words there in a language Garak can’t read. 

Though the wall looks ancient, the artwork looks almost new.

“We restored it,” Julian explains, “my friend and I. I don’t know when it was originally painted, but I’d guess it’s older than the Institute.” He points to the woman in yellow, “Her name is Yassmin Yousafzai. She was an inventor whose innovations in water generation and management were instrumental in helping Earth to recover from the Third World War, as well as a highly influential unity advocate. This land was part of the last of the old Earth nations to vote to join the United Earth Government. Yassmin swung that vote, convinced people that it was possible for them to take part in a progressive, secular society yet still hold true to their cultural and religious beliefs and traditions.”

“That sounds like Federation dogma to me,” Garak tells him. “I’m surprised to hear you of all people buying into it.”

“I believe in the Federation as a system,” Julian responds quickly and with surprising conviction. “A year ago I was on the verge of joining Starfleet.”

“You’d have made a terrible Starfleet Officer,” Garak tells him. “You’d have gotten yourself discharged for violating that ridiculous Prime Directive of theirs before you turned forty.”

Julian grins, “My father used to say the same thing,” he tells Garak, “and I used to tell him I’d find a way to get the Prime Directive rescinded before I was thirty-five.”

The look of pride on his face suggests the idea still pleases him. Garak decides to use the moment to press further.

“When you left Earth, you had Bajor in mind as a destination all along, didn’t you?”

“You didn’t get that from the news reports,” Julian replies, eyes narrowing shrewdly. “Did you figure it out yourself, or did you discover it through your ‘private’ research?”

“The former, though it’s interesting to hear that you think my ‘private research’ might provide proof.”

“It’s equally interesting you’re not denying your intention to continue investigating my personal history,” Julian counters. “How did you figure it out, then?”

“You’re young, intelligent, disillusioned with the Federation… you want to defy them, but you’re too conflicted about what you are, what was done to you, to make the fight about yourself. If I were in your shoes, I’d look for a weak spot. I’d ask myself, ‘what’s the Federation Council’s most vulnerable conservative policy’. And the answer would be…?”

“…Non-interference in the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor,” Julian finishes coldly, "and I don't want to 'defy' the Federation, Garak, I want to challenge it to be better. That's why I wanted to show you this," he points at the mural, "It explains it better than I can."

Garak looks at the picture again, and this time he sees what Bashir sees; a woman - a woman who was a genius, an activist and an idealist - looking at two rivers joining together and flowing towards the stars. _He's a patriot,_ Garak realises, _just like me. A patriot who's first loyalty is to a society that will never accept him._

“Let me ask you one more time," he says carefully, "what do _you_ think about the political situation in this sector?”

“I think political situations can change very quickly.”

“One bold move…”

“Indeed.”

Neither of them speaks for a moment. The silence between them feels like a stalemate. Garak decides to press forward.

“Don’t go to Bajor,” he says, “stay here on Terok Nor. The Ferengi is willing to offer you permanent work. Be my eyes and ears here and we’ll bring Dukat’s regime down together. In return, I’ll ensure that you retain your freedom and teach you more than you could ever hope to learn elsewhere about how to use your unique talents.”

Bashir stares at him. “That’s a hell of a proposition,” he says, "and after Dukat’s removal… what happens then?”

“A new prefect is appointed, one more suited to negotiating a dignified withdrawal from the sector and overseeing a peaceful transfer of sovereignty to the Bajorans.” 

What he doesn't say is once that's done, Cardassia can consolidate its military might in a more concerted effort to take the Federation border colonies and harness their abundant resources. By then, the Federation will be in political turmoil and in no position to mount a counteroffensive; the Order’s operatives in Federation space will see to that. And in the end, if the situation is in need of an extra push, Garak can make a bold move of his own and ensure that the devastating story of the ‘escaped augment’ meddling in the ‘brutal occupation’ to which the Federation has turned a blind eye for so long is leaked. He hopes it doesn’t come to that; although he cannot protect Bashir, sacrificing the boy while he’s still so young would be a poor alternative to watching him grow up to lead a long and interesting life.

“What if I decline?” Bashir asks.

“You’re free to go. Without my protection, sadly; my resources only stretch so far but then, you’re an ingenious young man. I’d offer even odds to anyone betting on you surviving to reach adulthood. Of course, that might change if you were to intervene in the Bajoran situation in a less… collaborative manner."

“Are you threatening me?”

“Not at all; I’m merely offering my new protégé advice.”

“This mentor/protégé relationship you keep talking about; what does it mean to you?”

“A mentor and his protégé are sworn to one another. It means I will have your loyalty and obedience, and in return will protect and instruct you.”

“How would being your protégé make my life any safer? I live on a space station controlled by a man who apparently regards you as a sworn enemy!”

“Of course the nature of our relationship would remain confidential. Quark knows – he’s taken quite a shine to you, you know – but no one else can.”

“How long would the arrangement last?”

“Until one of us dies, or betrays the other.”

Julian huffs, "That's quite a commitment you're looking for," he says dryly. “Maybe you should... I don't know, buy me dinner first?”

Garak cocks his head. “Is it customary among humans to cement such a relationship over a meal? I’m afraid I’ve already eaten… and it is rather late.”

Bashir continues to look amused. He’s enjoying this, Garak realises with delight. Oh, this relationship could become something quite special.

“Nevermind,” says Bashir. “So what if one of us betrays the other? What happens after that?”

“Then the one who is betrayed is duty-bound to hunt the betrayer down and kill him,” Garak explains. "Eventually one of us will kill the other; I should warn you that if you kill me, my closest associates - some rather talented killers themselves - will be bound to kill you in return." 

"In summary, betraying you; not a good option," Bashir says almost cheerfully.

"Indeed," says Garak.

"Right," says Bashir. "How about lunch, then?”

“Lunch?”

“Here, tomorrow at fourteen-hundred hours. I’d invite you to my quarters, but frankly there are storage closets on this station with more space, and Quark has some nice Cardassian holo-programs and a decent Cardassian menu.”

“Is this your way of saying you’ll agree to our arrangement?”

“Let’s start with lunch,” Julian’s tone is amused but firm.

Garak smiles at him, delighted by the boy’s ability to hold his nerve. “You don’t trust me, do you?” he asks.

Bashir looks embarrassed, draws in a sharp breath as though he’s readying some quick reassurance, but then he steadies himself before he speaks. “Not at all,” he says.

“Good,” says Garak. “Perhaps there’s hope for you yet.”

“Thank you,” says Bashir, “and… thank you for before as well, when you let me tell you about, you know, everything.”

“It was my pleasure,” Garak assures him. “I’ll see you for lunch tomorrow then?”

Bashir nods, “I’ll look forward to it,” he says earnestly. “More than I’ve looked forward to anything in quite some time.”

Garak doesn’t say it, but he feels the same way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray! This story is done. Thanks to everyone who has left kudos and comments, I've really enjoyed writing my first multi-chaptered story and I don't think I would have done it without you. Having an audience is really motivating. DS9 fans on AO3 are great!
> 
> I have been reading DS9 fanfic on and off for about 20 years (I'm 33 and have been a big fan since I started watching the show at 13!) so I should probably say thank you to everyone who has written in this fandom, as I'm sure I've been influenced and inspired by you even more than I know.
> 
> A few notes on Chapter 5:
> 
> The Institute for Conflict Resolution as featured here is not a real place, but its setting – Tuti island in Khartoum – is. The setting doesn’t feature in the story as much as I thought it might, but I wanted Bashir’s ‘safe place’ to be somewhere in the Global South. I chose Khartoum because I worked there for a while a few years ago. Also, in the Enterprise ‘Rise of the Federation’ novels feature a Nubian Federation President, so my backstory for the location featured in this chapter is that he built the Institute featured here as his ‘legacy’ to his homeland. 
> 
> ‘Yassmin Yousafzai’ is named after Malala Yousafzai and Yassmin abdel-magied
> 
> Flamingos are born with grey feathers, which gradually turn pink in the wild because of a natural pink dye called canthaxanthin that they obtain from their diet of brine shrimp and blue-green algae. If anyone wants to write the fic where someone (probably Jadzia , though I can see Julian being a willing accomplice) hacks the station’s replicators to see if canthaxanthin has the same effect on Cardassians and it actually works I will read it I will love you forever :D


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